


Merely Mortal

by quiet__tiger



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Contemplative, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-23
Updated: 2017-04-23
Packaged: 2018-10-23 05:11:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10712886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiet__tiger/pseuds/quiet__tiger
Summary: Pre-Robin Tim reflects about his city's heroes.





	Merely Mortal

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: "A City's Myth."
> 
> Originally posted to Livejournal 14th-Aug-2008.

Tim sat on the roof of his home, hoping to catch sight of Batman and Robin. For some reason no one else in Gotham seemed to know who they really were, but Tim did. He’d figured it out pretty easily once he had the right clues.

But even knowing about Bruce and Dick didn’t take away the power the Batman and his sidekick had over him.

They weren’t gods, no, but they did have power. The way they moved, and what they stood for. They took a city that was crumbling under its own weight and worked to clean it, support it, make it whole again. It was a seemingly impossible task, yet mere men were striving to achieve it.

Reading about Batman’s work, watching it for himself, it awed Tim. And Robin’s efforts, too, so much accomplished with a flare of pointy green boots and yellow cape. Part of him wanted to touch, to be sure it was all real, but the rest of him was afraid that if he did, it would all dissolve like smoke.

Figures like Batman and Robin couldn’t exist, right? Heroes were the stuff of legends. Hercules. Achilles. Odysseus. Nothing found in Gotham City on today’s Earth.

But then again, Superman was in Metropolis. The Flash in Central City. They were gods among men and truly had powers available to no mortal man.

Gotham was a special place, always was and always would be. Its heroes were special, too, men without powers, men with alter egos that Tim could sit next to on the bus or follow through the park. Not having powers only added to the legend rather than detract from it.

He sat and watched, ignoring the cold as it crept through him. And then he could hear the steady purr of a loud, large car a few blocks over, a car that was unlike any other. Batman and Robin were nearby.

He could almost smell the exhaust, cementing the heroes to the here and now of Gotham City. He longed to reach out and touch, but he would not. Could not. That power was not for him.


End file.
